Nursing Before Nightingale is a study of the transformation of nursing in England from the beginning of the nineteenth century until the emergence of the Nightingale nurse as the standard model in the 1890s. From the nineteenth century on historians have considered Florence Nightingale, with her training school established at St. Thomas's Hospital in 1860, the founder of modern nursing. This book investigates two major earlier reforms in nursing: a doctor-driven reform which came to be called the 'ward system,' and the reforms of the Anglican Sisters, known as the 'central system' of nursing. Rather than being the beginning of nursing reform, Nightingale nursing was the culmination of these two earlier reforms.

Nursing Before Nightingale is a study of the transformation of nursing in England from the beginning of the nineteenth century until the emergence of the Nightingale nurse as the standard model in the 1890s. From the nineteenth century on historians have considered Florence Nightingale, with her training school established at St. Thomas's Hospital in 1860, the founder of modern nursing. This book investigates two major earlier reforms in nursing: a doctor-driven reform which came to be called the 'ward system,' and the reforms of the Anglican Sisters, known as the 'central system' of nursing. Rather than being the beginning of nursing reform, Nightingale nursing was the culmination of these two earlier reforms.

Lucy Osburn (1836-1891) was the founder of modern nursing in Australia who also pioneered the employment of high status professional women in public institutions. Osburn learned her vocation at Florence Nightingale's school of nursing in London, but her relationship with Nightingale was not the smooth discourse of "Victorian ladies". Godden uses extensive and frank correspondence to build an intriguing picture of life for an independent middle-class woman. Osburn's triumphs and trials in New South Wales typify the struggles the colony faced in its relations with the Mother Country, and with new roles in the workplace for women. An enthralling and enlightening read.